Composers of Today: A Comprehensive Biographical and Critical Guide to Modern Composers of All Nations

youth) and Arnold Schönberg are his
profoundest admirations. Divorced from
his music, he has only one diversion,
his Ford--and in wandering over Austrian countrysides by car, he finds his
greatest relaxation and pleasure. He is
an enormously hard worker--notwithstanding his small output--and he often
works from eight to ten hours a day
upon his composition, when he is in the
white heat of inspiration. He constantly
changes and revises, so that a full day's
work may produce no more than a
dozen bars. He has most recently completed his latest opera, Lulu, which has
taken him six to produce; and he
will shortly begin work upon two other
music-dramas, one of them based on a
tragedy by Wedekind.Principal works by Alban Berg:

GERALD HUGH TYRWHITT-
WILSON BERNERS was born at
Apley Park, Bridgnorth, on September
18, 1883. He was educated at Eton,
and a great part of his youth was spent
in travel, thru France, Germany and Italy, in the study of languages as a
preparation for diplomatic service.
Musical study was pursued merely because it was to Berners a very pleasant
diversion--under a strict martinet who,
as Berners has commented so pleasantly,
convinced him even more forcefully that
diplomacy and not music was to be his
career. From 1909 to 1919. Berners
was an honorary attaché at Constantinople and Rome. Music, however, was
exerting such an enormous influence
over him that, shortly after his return
from Rome, he decided to apply himself

more seriously than ever before to its
study and to artistic creation.

Fortunately, at this time he came into
contact with two composers whose liberated views on music and unorthodox
beliefs impressed Berners so profoundly
that he decided to become their pupil.
These two composers--Igor Stravinsky
and Alfredo Casella--were amazed at
the enormous promise and originality of
their pupil's early, compositions, and they
urged him to adopt composition as his
life work. They were merely voicing Berner's inmost dream and wish--and
so, extending a gesture of farewell
towards all diplomatic positions, Berners
entered upon the career of a composer.

The first of his compositions was a
setting of Heine Du Bist Wie Eine
Blume which--characteristic of Berners'
unorthodoxy--was treated in the light
of a passage in one of Heine's biographies which stated that the verse was
written to a small white pig. This was
followed by several more important
works--including Three Little Funeral
Marches and Fragments Psychologiques
--in which Berners' very peculiar style
reached further development.

"Though the craftsmanship of this
music is highly admirable," wrote Eugene Goossens, concerning the Funeral
Marches, "the real Berners idiom only
fully reveals itself in the work which
immediately follows. . . . I refer to the

Print this page

While we understand printed pages are helpful to our users, this limitation is necessary
to help protect our publishers' copyrighted material and prevent its unlawful distribution.
We are sorry for any inconvenience.